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Why return of the allowances by the First and Second Ladies was right
Even though society is governed by laws, rules, and regulations as well as moral values, it is recognised from time to time that in certain cases certain individuals and groups of people do not apply the laws, rules and regulations together with the moral values making right-thinking people in society wonder whether we are all upright in terms of laws and moral values with which we measure ourselves.
A few days ago, the First Lady, Mrs. Rebecca Okaikour Akufo-Addo, had cause to return some allowances paid to her by the state, following the recommendations of the Prof. Yaa Ntiamoa-Baidu Committee, as First Lady of the Republic in line with similar payments made to other members in the country. This gesture was followed by the Second Lady, Mrs Samira Bawumia, who has also been treated in an unfair manner in the same way.
Irritating and atrocious comments
What made the issue irritating and annoying was the atrocious way some members of the opposition exploited it to score political points and to create the impression that President Akufo-Addo and the First Lady, Rebecca Akufo-Addo, cared less about Ghanaians. This unfortunate incident attracted adverse comments from certain individuals and groups of people including the NDC and the CPP which took advantage of the situation to mount unprintable attacks on the First and Second families of the Republic of Ghana.
Some CPP women for instance organised a press conference to say that they did not know what the Second Lady, Samira Bawumia, was doing in the country except to portray herself as a beauty contestant. This awful comment came from women who were older than the youthful Second Lady. Their comments came out of mischief, jealousy and probably sheer envy though, it was unwise to unleash this attack on the Second Lady in this way.
Regarding the First Lady, these women pretended not to have seen the good works this woman is carrying out in this country but to rain unprintable insults upon her as if she did not know what to do in this noble country of ours. It is very unfortunate that such misguided women misfits had to put up behaviour like uncultured people whose only aim in life was to insult decent and hardworking people who were far pleasant in behaviour and comportment when compared with them.
Uncouth behaviour
The CPP is the party that helped Dr. Kwame Nkrumah to emerge the first political leader in independent Ghana so for some of its followers to have gone that ugly way to attack real ladies of the state compared with their own rusty and uncouth behaviour leaves much to be desired.
As for the NDC and the former President Mr. John Mahama, the least said about them the better. The NDC falsified the facts and presented them to Ghanaians as if decent President Akufo-Addo was only in to satisfy the current First and Second Ladies even though this was not the case of my own friend, Mr. John Mahama, knowing very well that his agenda was false, dirty and mischievous deliberately issued a statement emphasising the fact that President Akufo-Addo and the First Lady were rather being greedy and mischievous even though this was far from the truth compared with their lifestyle which was nothing good to write home about.
Sheep in wolves’ clothing
Ghanaians can distinguish between genuine sheep, the NPP, and wolves in sheep clothing, the NDC, and its cohorts. Since this is the case, the NDC should never think that such dirty tricks can win them political power in Ghana today. They may succeed in deceiving a few people in society, but majority of well- meaning Ghanaians cannot be deceived in the same way. If this is the case then the NDC should sit up and forget about such usual dirty tricks which they embark upon, without success though, from time to time.
What crime was committed by President Akufo-Addo in this matter?
Indeed, the payment of allowances to the spouses of the current president and vice-president, former heads of state, presidents and vice-presidents respectively formed part of the privileges due the president and the vice-president under Article 71 of the Constitution. Thus, instead of keeping it in darkness and not backed by any law, President Akufo-Addo thought it wise to regularise the practice by asking parliament to approve and back it with the appropriate law in line with rule of law, transparent practice, openness, democratic principles, and good governance.
Filthy and distasteful comments
In the light of the distasteful and filthy comments from destructive sections of the population “…..the First Lady in consultation with the President of the Republic, has decided to refund all monies paid to her as allowances from the date of the President’s assumption of office i.e., from January 2017 to date, amounting to GHS 899,097.84.”
Justification for rejection
Against this background, the First Lady, is very right in returning the allowances due her to government chest to the embarrassment of shameless members of society. This marks the first reason the return of the allowances was good. In other words, both the First and Second Ladies by the return of their allowances wish to let the world know that they cannot beheld to shameless behaviour as exhibited by some Ghanaians whose corrupt acts are beyond description.
The second reason justifying the return of the allowances is the fact that they are not only beautiful ladies in character and deed, but decent in what they do. Their decent behaviour is incomparable when aligned with those who organised press conferences to attack and insult them without any good reason.
The third good reason for the return of the money is that by the grace of God, the two ladies operate various businesses which give them more than enough money to cater for their ‘own selves’ and spare a little on others who may need to be assisted in one way or the other. What this means is that they have fought hard, with the blessings of God to become what they are today, compared with others who came into politics to steal the little wealth available for the development of people in the country.
Fourthly, they are not envious of others who were paid similar allowances and are keeping them whether they want to return them or not, seeing that it is not everyone who is not in very good health or wealthy enough to decently return the amount already paid to them in the past. This explains why according to the First Lady “she is doing this as a purely personal decision, without prejudices to the rights of others, and not to undermine the propriety of the process undertaken by Parliament.”
Support for the President
They will, therefore, continue to play their pleasant roles to support the President and his administration as has always been the case in the implementation of the mandate given him by the good people of Ghana who deserve to be treated better in line with the image of God the Creator of the universe and all the people who dwell in it.
Ghanaians should be proud of the current First and Second Ladies, seeing that having made it on their own by the grace of God, are in no way joining their husbands to dissipate public funds instead of protecting them in the interest of all Ghanaians to ensure progress and rapid socio-economic development for the nation.
By Dr Kofi Amponsah-Bediako
THE journalist is a hunter. He goes after human rats and grasscutters personified, matters about whom he can salt and spice and present as news. The fatter and juicier the catch, the better, because sensation is essentially our cup of tea.
Our job is to sell news and sell it in grand style.
Because the journalist is a hunter and is created with a special kind of nose for sniffing out news, he is usually not welcome in many places. He is seen as someone who has been born to make people uncomfortable.
The problem is that some people don’t want things written about them even if it is promotional and favourable. When it entails publishing their pictures alongside the story, they are doubly scared.
“Please, don’t use my picture. People will think I’ve got money and come for loan,” someone told me.
Anyhow, journalists are seen as intruders, undesirables, born with plenty of okro in the mouth; maybe some also in the nose. Some of my friends are no longer too close because they fear I’d give them full coverage in the Sikaman Palava column. Ha ha ha! What a funny world!
Well, people like my Uncle, Sir Kofi Jogolo, my former classmate and born-mathematician, Kwame Korkorti, and ex-football star cum human-salamander Kofi Kokotako don’t mind featuring in the hilarious inches of this column. Kofi Owuo alias Death By Poverty is one personality who has to be mentioned in this palaver.
These are people who are going to live long, primarily because they see the world as one big ball of fun. When Kwame Korkorti was told that his dear mother was dead at home, he smiled and asked the bearer of the message whether his mother had cooked the afternoon meal before claiming she was dead. Until her death, Korkorti ate his lunch at his mother’s end.
When my Uncle Kofi Jogolo was picked and lost 1,500 dollars and a good amount of Sikaman currency, he didn’t lament the loss. Instead he was amused. In fact, he was almost glad about it, because he grinned from ear to ear, stroked his delicate moustache and congratulated the thief, adding that “He is smarter than I am.” Yeah, Jogolo is the man who employs a Swedish barber to trim his moustache.
And when Kofi Kokotako was unemployed and was nearly hit by an articulated truck, he called the driver a fool. “The idiot should have killed me,” he said to me. “Didn’t he know I was unemployed and suffering?”
Today, Kokotako is employed as a Reverend and is not doing badly at all. Thanks to the regular silver collection.
And what about Kofi Owuo, the celebrated poor man. His wife left him not because he was poor, but because he swore in front of her that he would never prosper.
The following dawn the wife packed bag and baggage and went back to her parents and told them all about her husband’s alliance with poverty. Her parents were bewildered and called the alliance unholy. They had no option than to send back Owuo’s drinks to end the marriage.
Kofi Owuo alias Death By Poverty did not contest the issue. He was more engrossed thinking about how to become poorer than to contest what he called a frivolous matter. The wife could go to hell, he said. These are people longevity smiles upon. Nothing worries them.
Getting back to talking about journalists. I’d say that anywhere there is journalism, the issue of press freedom is not too far away. Is the press free? That’s one question foreigners want answer to when they are on visit.
Well, journalists celebrate a yearly WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY to drum home the idea of press freedom as a very important thing in the practice of journalism.
This year’s was celebrated almost a fortnight ago but people didn’t see much of us because we are normally not good celebrants. We should have mounted a float to roam the entire capital, dancing asaboni to brass band music just like PTC did recently.
Although journalists are known to be very good dancers because they walk very much, on that day, they were all busy writing. It was the Minister of Information, Mr Kofi Totobi Quakyi who saved the day by addressing a forum organised to mark the day.
He is a man I’ve always admired since his radical university days. He spoke much on press freedom, cautioning the press not to abuse the freedom granted by the Fourth Republican constitution, but to use it for the progress of society.
Well, press freedom has been defined by many journalists as the freedom to ‘write nonsense’. This definition is not quite accurate. I asked one staff reporter to define press freedom. It took him fifteen minutes to put up something.
“Press freedom is the freedom that is enjoyed by the press that enables journalists to publish or broadcast any kind of material so long as it is absolutely true, is not libelous and slanderous, and is not against the national interest.”
I gave him eight out of 10, a straight A. I guess every journalist is old enough to know that certain things he or she writes is for or against the national interest. We certainly must guard against writing against the national interest; that is very important.
There is also the question of criticising government. The government can be criticized, so long as the criticisms are genuine and the President and his ministers are not insulted and called names. Let us criticize, but let us do it decently so that the journalistic profession can be revered, and its nobility acknowledged. We are not war mongers, are we?
One area in which journalists are not spoken well of is the complaint that they misquote people. Journalists sometimes misquote people, but in four out of five complaints it turns out that nobody is misquoted after all.
When we interview people they say things unreservedly and we publish unreservedly. When the publication is out and their friends or superiors read it and accuse them of having said too much to the press, then they start claiming they were misquoted.
We have encountered these ‘misquotation palaver’ every now and then and reporters are usually accused of this transgression. However, when they bring out their note-books or recorders, it is realised that they wrote nothing out of the way. “Book no lie”.
My advice to people who deal with the press is that if they do not want anything written, they shouldn’t say it. What they want to say is OFF-RECORD, then of course, there is no reason to say it. When you say it, you’re taking a risk. In that instance, you can’t also claim to have been misquoted or words put into your mouth.
And it isn’t every journalist who would be circumspect in matters that are supposed to be off-record, because journalists often want to be as sensational as possible to make their stories saleable. So say just what you want to see published and you won’t later regret it and claim you were misquoted.
Well, I’m not holding brief for journalists, because a few of us are notorious for colouring our reports sometimes sand-papering the words so much that they look very bright in front of readers.
As I once said, when the police tells one such notorious pressman that the thief stole a brown goat, the pressman would want to know whether the goat was bearded. Of course, the police would say ‘Yes’.
However, in the press report, it appears, “A gang of notorious goat-thieves were apprehended in the early hours of yesterday. In the car in which they were riding was a brownish-red goat having a long beard. Upon further examination, it was realised that the goat also had a greyish moustache.”
When the story appears, the police are naturally disturbed. A single thief turns out to be a gang of thieves. The goat also becomes a chameleon and changes colour to brownish-red. And a moustacheless goat overnight wears a greyish moustache whether you like it or not. Luckily the journalist does not add that the moustache was trimmed by a Swedish barber.
Yes, we have a few of such mischief-creating, chronically notorious journalists. But they are one in a hundred. In any case, we make the world. And we shall always do our best to make it a happy place to live in.
This article was first publish on Saturday, May, 20, 1995
When I hear of people who are of the opinion that they cannot make it in life unless they travel abroad, l become sad.
Whenever I see on TV, news of people, that is migrants who have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea, while attempting to cross to Europe, l become filled with sadness and then anger.
The underlying factor is desperation born out of loss of hope, in life. When an individual tends to believe that his only hope of making it in life is to travel abroad, the risk of dying at sea, does not deter him or her.
The role of some pastors on shaping the mindset of people, especially the youth, leaves much to be desired. You hear them declaring on various media platforms how they can pray for you to get a visa to travel abroad, instead of encouraging them to find something to do to improve their lives as the Bible teaches that God will bless the work of their hands.
The GREATER WORKS CONFERENCE is geared towards renewing the minds of people with a specific focus on people of African descent to rid themselves of the negative perception of lack of capacity to excel in life.
Pastor Mensa Otabil believes that every human being, no matter the skin colour, was created in the exact image of God and therefore has the capacity to do exploits.
The whiteman was not created in the image of God while the Blackman was created in the image of something other than God. The Black person therefore can achieve whatever the whiteman can achieve.
The development in terms of industrialisation that is lacking which has generated unemployment for the youth, is due to lack of effective leadership. The lack of moral integrity in society, is what is causing the lack of job opportunities, which is as a result of corrupt acts which drive away private investment.
A culture of inferiority complex exists which needs to be dealt with, so the African can develop the self worth necessary for personal development which can then result in capacity deployment to avhieve personal goals.
Success in life begins with the individual’s recognition that he or she is capable of achieving the dreams he or she has conceived in his or her mind. The Bible teaches that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy is understanding according to Proverbs 9:10.
Christianity was the driving force behind the development of Europe because no society can sustain development without high moral values. GREATER WORKS therefore is a deliberate project to shape the minds of people, especially the youth, who will become the leaders of our future, to prioritise morality in their daily lives.
This is the only way to see a massive transformation in every aspect of our lives as Ghanaians and Africans in Ghana and the rest of the continent.
Since the inception of the GREATOR WORKS CONFERENCE, it has made a lot of impact in the lives of many people from the youth up to the senior citizens level. I recall the testimony of a church member who was motivated and pursued higher education and became one of the youngest Chartered Accountants in this country. Year after year, the impact of the conference has been enormous and lives in Ghana and across the continent, are being transformed.
Black people have started regaining their self confidence and the youth have started getting into areas that previously were considered out of bounds. At a personal level, certain ideas that some years ago, l would have not dreamt about suddenly has become realistic dreams.
The Christian lifestyle has impacted on my children and those close to me. Mindset change starts with one individual, then another and then gradually it spreads like a viral infection until a critical mass is attained and them a massive impact. There is hope for the future.
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
